Florida Panthers Can’t End Skid, Team Looking For Answers

It really looked like Saturday would be the game where the Florida Panthers would end their skid. Carter Verhaeghe, playing on a new line with Anton Lundell and Mackie Samoskevich, scored 52 seconds into the game. It was the winger’s first goal in six games.

Even after Colorado Avalanche winger Jonathan Drouin evened it up by tapping in a flukey rebound a few minutes later, Aleksander Barkov put the Panthers ahead with four minutes left in the opening period by whacking a rebound out of midair at the crease.

The Panthers were up 2-1 going into the intermission. Everything looked solid enough.

And then, Colorado outscored the Panthers 4-1 in the second period. It was one of the bigger single-period drubbings the Panthers have been handed this year. 

Most of the Avalanche’s chances came directly in front of the net. Three of their first four goals were scored inside the crease.

“I just think that our five-man unit in front of our goal is not defending well enough,” Matthew Tkachuk said. “Our goalies have been great for us this year. We’re just not doing enough to make it easier on them.”

The Panthers have lost five of their last six and have a minus-10 goal differential in that span.

“We get back to playing that way,” Tkachuk said. “That’s when we are gonna have success. We got away with it, maybe, in some previous games earlier in the season, playing non-playoff teams. Now, we’re playing playoff teams and they’re kicking our ass right now because we’re not playing our style.” 

Tkachuk:

“We got away with (not playing our style) earlier in the season, playing non-playoff teams. Now we’re playing playoff teams and they’re kicking our ass right now because we’re not playing our style” pic.twitter.com/SxFhUNqy7d

— Alex Krutchik (@AlexKrutchikFOF) November 24, 2024

What’s the proper fix? Head coach Paul Maurice said there isn’t one singular thing he can call out.

“In a game like that, there’s not a single issue with your game. We’re struggling, without a doubt. But there’s no ‘if we fixed one thing in tonight’s game we would’ve been much better.’”

One thing to pick apart is the defensive performance of the aforementioned Verhaeghe-Lundell-Samoskevich line. While productive on offense, the line was on the ice for two of Colorado’s goals. The defensive pairing of Niko Mikkola and Dmitry Kulikov, while usually structurally sound, was on the ice for three goals.

Down 5-3 early in the third period, the Panthers looked like they scored a power play goal on an Aaron Ekblad slap shot from the blue line. However, it was immediately waived off for goaltender interference. It appeared that Tkachuk’s heel was barely inside the crease when the goal was scored. The Panthers challenged it, but the call on the ice stood.

Colorado scored later to make it 6-3 and tacked on an empty-net goal.

Maurice maintained after the game he thought it was a good goal. He added that he did not get an explanation from the referees.

The Panthers played a tough schedule in the first two months of the year, and dealt with injuries to Barkov and Tkachuk while doing it. But Maurice doesn’t think that’s the reason they’re struggling now.

“We got our theories here,” Maurice said. But none of it is going to help us the next night. We have a structure that we need to play. We’re not that far off that. But there’s certainly some execution challenges that we have.”